Massimiliano Marcellino
Biographic Data
| ID | 8777089 |
|---|---|
| NAME | Massimiliano Marcellino |
| GIVEN NAMES | Massimiliano |
| FAMILY NAME | Marcellino |
| SIGNATURE | MARCELLINO M |
| AFFILIATIONS | Bocconi University |
| ORCID | 0000-0002-8737-2768 |
| VERIFIED | Yes |
| TOTAL WORKS | 17 |
| TOTAL CITATIONS | 0 |
| AUTHOR COUNT | 17 |
| EDITOR COUNT | 0 |
| FIRST PUBLICATION YEAR | 1999 |
| LATEST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2025 |
| H-INDEX | 0 |
Specification Choices in Quantile Regression for Empirical Macroeconomics
Quantile regression has become widely used in empirical macroeconomics, in particular for estimating and forecasting tail risks. This paper examines various choices in the specification of quantile regressions for macro applications, including how and to what extent to include shrinkage and whether to apply shrinkage in a classical or Bayesian framework. We focus on forecasting accuracy, measured with quantile scores and quantile‐weighted continu…
Gaussian Process Vector Autoregressions and Macroeconomic Uncertainty
We develop a nonparametric multivariate time series model that remains agnostic on the precise relationship between a (possibly) large set of macroeconomic time series and their lagged values. The main building block of our model is a Gaussian process prior on the functional relationship that determines the conditional mean of the model, hence, the name of Gaussian process vector autoregression (GP-VAR). A flexible stochastic volatility specifica…
Nonparametric Time Varying IV-SVARs
This paper studies the estimation and inference of time-varying impulse response functions in structural vector autoregressions (SVARs) identified with external instruments. Building on kernel estimators that allow for nonparametric time variation, we derive the asymptotic distributions of the relevant quantities. Our estimators are simple and computationally trivial and allow for potentially weak instruments. Simulations suggest satisfactory emp…
Investigating Growth-at-Risk Using a Multicountry Nonparametric Quantile Factor Model
We develop a nonparametric quantile panel regression model. Within each quantile, the quantile function is a combination of linear and nonlinear parts, which we approximate using Bayesian Additive Regression Trees (BART). Cross-sectional information is captured through a conditionally heteroscedastic latent factor. The nonparametric feature enhances flexibility, while the panel feature increases the number of observations in the tails. We develop…
Addressing Covid-19 Outliers in BVARs with Stochastic Volatility
The COVID-19 pandemic has led to enormous data movements that strongly affect parameters and forecasts from standard Bayesian vector autoregressions (BVARs). To address these issues, we propose BVAR models with outlier-augmented stochastic volatility (SV) that combine transitory and persistent changes in volatility. The resulting density forecasts are much less sensitive to outliers in the data than standard BVARs. Predictive Bayes factors indica…
The global component of inflation volatility
Global developments play an important role for domestic inflation rates. Earlier literature has found that a substantial amount of the variation in a large set of national inflation rates can be explained by a single global factor. However, inflation volatility has been typically neglected, although it is clearly relevant both from a policy point of view and for structural analysis and forecasting. We study the evolution of inflation rates in sev…
Macroeconomic forecasting in a multi‐country context
In this paper, we propose a hierarchical shrinkage approach for multi‐country VAR models. In implementation, we consider three different scale mixtures Normals priors and provide new theoretical results. Empirically, we examine how model specifications and prior choices affect the forecasting performance for GDP growth, inflation, and a short‐term interest rate for the G7 economies. We find that hierarchical shrinkage, particularly as implemented…
Nowcasting tail risk to economic activity at a weekly frequency
This paper focuses on nowcasts of tail risk to GDP growth, with a potentially wide array of monthly and weekly information used to produce nowcasts on a weekly basis. We consider Bayesian mixed frequency regressions with stochastic volatility and Bayesian quantile regressions. Our results show that, within some limits, more information helps the accuracy of nowcasts of tail risk to GDP growth. Accuracy typically improves as time moves forward wit…
No‐arbitrage priors, drifting volatilities, and the term structure of interest rates
We use a Bayesian vector autoregression with stochastic volatility to forecast government bond yields. We form the conjugate prior from a no‐arbitrage affine term structure model. The model improves on the accuracy of point and density forecasts from a no‐change random walk and an affine term structure model with stochastic volatility. Our proposed approach may succeed by relaxing the no‐arbitrage affine term structure model's requirements that y…
Assessing international commonality in macroeconomic uncertainty and its effects
This paper uses a large vector autoregression to measure international macroeconomic uncertainty and its effects on major economies. We provide evidence of significant commonality in macroeconomic volatility, with one common factor driving strong comovement across economies and variables. We measure uncertainty and its effects with a large model in which the error volatilities feature a factor structure containing time‐varying global components a…
Markov-Switching Three-Pass Regression Filter
We introduce a new approach for the estimation of high-dimensional factor models with regime-switching factor loadings by extending the linear three-pass regression filter to settings where parameters can vary according to Markov processes. The new method, denoted as Markov-switching three-pass regression filter (MS-3PRF), is suitable for datasets with large cross-sectional dimensions, since estimation and inference are straightforward, as oppose…
Measuring Uncertainty and Its Impact on the Economy
We propose a new model for measuring uncertainty and its effects on the economy, based on a large vector autoregression with stochastic volatility driven by common factors representing macroeconomic and financial uncertainty. The uncertainty measures reflect changes in both the conditional mean and volatility of the variables, and their impact on the economy can be assessed within the same framework. Estimates with U.S. data show substantial comm…
Short-Term GDP Forecasting With a Mixed-Frequency Dynamic Factor Model With Stochastic Volatility
In this article, we develop a mixed frequency dynamic factor model in which the disturbances of both the latent common factor and of the idiosyncratic components have time-varying stochastic volatilities. We use the model to investigate business cycle dynamics in the euro area and present three sets of empirical results. First, we evaluate the impact of macroeconomic releases on point and density forecast accuracy and on the width of forecast int…
Common Drifting Volatility in Large Bayesian VARs
The general pattern of estimated volatilities of macroeconomic and financial variables is often broadly similar. We propose two models in which conditional volatilities feature comovement and study them using U.S. macroeconomic data. The first model specifies the conditional volatilities as driven by a single common unobserved factor, plus an idiosyncratic component. We label this model BVAR with general factor stochastic volatility (BVAR-GFSV) a…
Markov-Switching Midas Models
This article introduces a new regression model—Markov-switching mixed data sampling (MS-MIDAS)—that incorporates regime changes in the parameters of the mixed data sampling (MIDAS) models and allows for the use of mixed-frequency data in Markov-switching models. After a discussion of estimation and inference for MS-MIDAS and a small sample simulation-based evaluation, the MS-MIDAS model is applied to the prediction of the U.S. economic activity, …
LSM
Some Consequences of Temporal Aggregation in Empirical Analysis
I derive the generating mechanism of a temporally aggregated process when the disaggregated one belongs to the vector autoregressive integrated moving average class. I then study the effects of temporal aggregation on a set of characteristics of usual interest such as exogeneity, causality, cointegration, and common features. An empirical example with Canadian interest rates illustrates the main issues
No prominent works on this page.
Some Consequences of Temporal Aggregation in Empirical Analysis
I derive the generating mechanism of a temporally aggregated process when the disaggregated one belongs to the vector autoregressive integrated moving average class. I then study the effects of temporal aggregation on a set of characteristics of usual interest such as exogeneity, causality, cointegration, and common features. An empirical example with Canadian interest rates illustrates the main issues
LSM
Markov-Switching Midas Models
This article introduces a new regression model—Markov-switching mixed data sampling (MS-MIDAS)—that incorporates regime changes in the parameters of the mixed data sampling (MIDAS) models and allows for the use of mixed-frequency data in Markov-switching models. After a discussion of estimation and inference for MS-MIDAS and a small sample simulation-based evaluation, the MS-MIDAS model is applied to the prediction of the U.S. economic activity, …
Short-Term GDP Forecasting With a Mixed-Frequency Dynamic Factor Model With Stochastic Volatility
In this article, we develop a mixed frequency dynamic factor model in which the disturbances of both the latent common factor and of the idiosyncratic components have time-varying stochastic volatilities. We use the model to investigate business cycle dynamics in the euro area and present three sets of empirical results. First, we evaluate the impact of macroeconomic releases on point and density forecast accuracy and on the width of forecast int…
Common Drifting Volatility in Large Bayesian VARs
The general pattern of estimated volatilities of macroeconomic and financial variables is often broadly similar. We propose two models in which conditional volatilities feature comovement and study them using U.S. macroeconomic data. The first model specifies the conditional volatilities as driven by a single common unobserved factor, plus an idiosyncratic component. We label this model BVAR with general factor stochastic volatility (BVAR-GFSV) a…
Measuring Uncertainty and Its Impact on the Economy
We propose a new model for measuring uncertainty and its effects on the economy, based on a large vector autoregression with stochastic volatility driven by common factors representing macroeconomic and financial uncertainty. The uncertainty measures reflect changes in both the conditional mean and volatility of the variables, and their impact on the economy can be assessed within the same framework. Estimates with U.S. data show substantial comm…
Assessing international commonality in macroeconomic uncertainty and its effects
This paper uses a large vector autoregression to measure international macroeconomic uncertainty and its effects on major economies. We provide evidence of significant commonality in macroeconomic volatility, with one common factor driving strong comovement across economies and variables. We measure uncertainty and its effects with a large model in which the error volatilities feature a factor structure containing time‐varying global components a…
Markov-Switching Three-Pass Regression Filter
We introduce a new approach for the estimation of high-dimensional factor models with regime-switching factor loadings by extending the linear three-pass regression filter to settings where parameters can vary according to Markov processes. The new method, denoted as Markov-switching three-pass regression filter (MS-3PRF), is suitable for datasets with large cross-sectional dimensions, since estimation and inference are straightforward, as oppose…
No‐arbitrage priors, drifting volatilities, and the term structure of interest rates
We use a Bayesian vector autoregression with stochastic volatility to forecast government bond yields. We form the conjugate prior from a no‐arbitrage affine term structure model. The model improves on the accuracy of point and density forecasts from a no‐change random walk and an affine term structure model with stochastic volatility. Our proposed approach may succeed by relaxing the no‐arbitrage affine term structure model's requirements that y…
The global component of inflation volatility
Global developments play an important role for domestic inflation rates. Earlier literature has found that a substantial amount of the variation in a large set of national inflation rates can be explained by a single global factor. However, inflation volatility has been typically neglected, although it is clearly relevant both from a policy point of view and for structural analysis and forecasting. We study the evolution of inflation rates in sev…
Macroeconomic forecasting in a multi‐country context
In this paper, we propose a hierarchical shrinkage approach for multi‐country VAR models. In implementation, we consider three different scale mixtures Normals priors and provide new theoretical results. Empirically, we examine how model specifications and prior choices affect the forecasting performance for GDP growth, inflation, and a short‐term interest rate for the G7 economies. We find that hierarchical shrinkage, particularly as implemented…
Nowcasting tail risk to economic activity at a weekly frequency
This paper focuses on nowcasts of tail risk to GDP growth, with a potentially wide array of monthly and weekly information used to produce nowcasts on a weekly basis. We consider Bayesian mixed frequency regressions with stochastic volatility and Bayesian quantile regressions. Our results show that, within some limits, more information helps the accuracy of nowcasts of tail risk to GDP growth. Accuracy typically improves as time moves forward wit…
Investigating Growth-at-Risk Using a Multicountry Nonparametric Quantile Factor Model
We develop a nonparametric quantile panel regression model. Within each quantile, the quantile function is a combination of linear and nonlinear parts, which we approximate using Bayesian Additive Regression Trees (BART). Cross-sectional information is captured through a conditionally heteroscedastic latent factor. The nonparametric feature enhances flexibility, while the panel feature increases the number of observations in the tails. We develop…
Addressing Covid-19 Outliers in BVARs with Stochastic Volatility
The COVID-19 pandemic has led to enormous data movements that strongly affect parameters and forecasts from standard Bayesian vector autoregressions (BVARs). To address these issues, we propose BVAR models with outlier-augmented stochastic volatility (SV) that combine transitory and persistent changes in volatility. The resulting density forecasts are much less sensitive to outliers in the data than standard BVARs. Predictive Bayes factors indica…
Specification Choices in Quantile Regression for Empirical Macroeconomics
Quantile regression has become widely used in empirical macroeconomics, in particular for estimating and forecasting tail risks. This paper examines various choices in the specification of quantile regressions for macro applications, including how and to what extent to include shrinkage and whether to apply shrinkage in a classical or Bayesian framework. We focus on forecasting accuracy, measured with quantile scores and quantile‐weighted continu…
Gaussian Process Vector Autoregressions and Macroeconomic Uncertainty
We develop a nonparametric multivariate time series model that remains agnostic on the precise relationship between a (possibly) large set of macroeconomic time series and their lagged values. The main building block of our model is a Gaussian process prior on the functional relationship that determines the conditional mean of the model, hence, the name of Gaussian process vector autoregression (GP-VAR). A flexible stochastic volatility specifica…
Nonparametric Time Varying IV-SVARs
This paper studies the estimation and inference of time-varying impulse response functions in structural vector autoregressions (SVARs) identified with external instruments. Building on kernel estimators that allow for nonparametric time variation, we derive the asymptotic distributions of the relevant quantities. Our estimators are simple and computationally trivial and allow for potentially weak instruments. Simulations suggest satisfactory emp…
Econometrics (16 works) · Monetary Policy and Economic Impact (15 works) · Economics (13 works) · Mathematics (12 works) · Computer Science (10 works) · Market Dynamics and Volatility (10 works) · Statistics (10 works) · Bayesian probability (8 works) · Stochastic volatility (7 works) · Artificial Intelligence (6 works)